Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo GCIH GCC
108th Prime Minister of Portugal
In office 1 August 1979 – 3 January 1980
President	António Ramalho Eanes
Preceded by	Carlos Mota Pinto
Succeeded by	Francisco Sá Carneiro
Consultant of the President of the Republic
In office 1 October 1981 – 1 February 1985
President	António Ramalho Eanes
Minister of Social Affairs
In office 17 July 1974 – 26 March 1975
Prime Minister	Vasco Gonçalves
Preceded by	Mário Murteira
Succeeded by	Jorge Sá Borges
Personal details
Born	18 January 1930 Abrantes, Portugal
Died	10 July 2004 (aged 74) Lisbon, Portugal
Political party	Independent
Alma mater	Instituto Superior Técnico
Profession	Chemical engineer
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva de Matos Pintasilgo, GCIH GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐˈɾiɐ dɨ ˈluɾdɨʃ pĩtɐˈsiɫɡu]); (Abrantes, São João Baptista, 18 January 1930 – Lisbon, 10 July 2004) was a Portuguese chemical engineer and politician. She was the first and to date only woman to serve as Prime Minister of Portugal, and the third woman to serve as Prime Minister in Europe, after Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Margaret Thatcher.

Early life

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was born to a middle-class family in 1930.^[1] Her father, Jaime de Matos Pintasilgo (born Covilhã, Conceição, 9 December 1896 – died Lisbon, Socorro, 10 October 1959) was in the wool business, and her mother was Amélia do Carmo Ruivo da Silva, a native of Vendas Novas. Her parents married in Abrantes on 14 March 1929.^[2]

Her father, Jaime, abandoned the family and at school she tried hard to hide that, thus causing her to avoid usual relationships.^[3] At the age of seven, she was sent to the Liceu Filipa de Lencastre, a secondary school, in Lisbon. She distinguished herself in the Mocidade Portuguesa, a militaristic youth movement founded by Dictator Salazar. Later she joined Acção Católica (Catholic Action). During her years at the Instituto Superior Técnico from where she earned a degree in industrial chemical engineering, she joined and eventually led the Catholic's women's student movement.^[2]

Career

After graduating from University of Lisbon's Instituto Superior Técnico in 1953, at the age of 23, with an engineering degree in industrial chemistry she went into a graduate scholarship program with the national Nuclear Energy Board.^[4] After completing the program, she began working for a large Portuguese conglomerate with interests in cement plants, Companhia União Fabril, the "CUF".^[4] By 1954, she held the position of chief engineer of the studies and projects division.^[4] From that position she quickly moved to the position of project director, where she was in charge of the firm's documentation center and responsible for the company's technical journals.^[4] She held this position for seven years, until she left the company in 1960.^[4]

Pintasilgo had strong ties to the Roman Catholic Church. From 1952–56, at Lisbon's Catholic University of Portugal, she was president of the women's group. In 1956 she became the international president of a movement of Catholic students, Pax Romana. In 1961, Pintasilgo joined the Grail (Graal), an international Catholic laywomen's movement. Two years after joining the Grail she led an international group working to improve the movement as well as establishing it in Portugal.^[4]

By 1965 she had become the Grail's international vice-president. She was also appointed by the Vatican and served as woman's liaison between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches. After leaving Companhia União Fabril, she held a job in government until 1969 which was to run Portugal's program for development and social change. In 1970, she presided over government working groups involving women's affairs, as well as being a member of the Portuguese delegation to the United Nations, 1971–72. In 1974 she was appointed secretary of state for social welfare in the first provisional government following the revolution. She moved her way up to Minister of Social Affairs by early 1975. In 1975, Pintasilgo became Portugal's first Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.^[4]

Prime Minister and after

In 1979 she was called on by General António Ramalho Eanes, the President of Portugal, to become Prime Minister.^[2] Pintasilgo was sworn in as the Prime Minister of the Portuguese caretaker government on 1 August 1979 with the term of three months in office.^[5] During her time in office she pushed to modernize the out-dated social welfare system. She left her mark by making social security universal and improving health care, education, and labor legislation in Portugal.^[2]

She contributed the piece "Daring to be different" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan.^[6]

Pintasilgo was the first woman to run for president in 1986. She ran as an independent and receiving 7% of the votes. The following year she was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Socialist Party which she held until 1989.^[1]

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo died of cardiac arrest at her home in Lisbon on 10 July 2004, aged 74.^[7]

Electoral results

1986 Portuguese presidential election

Summary of the 26 January and 16 February 1986 Portuguese presidential election results

Candidates		Supporting parties	First round		Second round
			Votes	%	Votes	%
	Mário Soares	Socialist Party	1,443,683	25.43	3,010,756	51.18
	Diogo Freitas do Amaral	Democratic and Social Centre, Social Democratic Party	2,629,597	46.31	2,872,064	48.82
	Francisco Salgado Zenha	Portuguese Communist Party, Democratic Renovator Party	1,185,867	20.88
	Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo	Independent	418,961	7.38
	Ângelo Veloso^[A]	Portuguese Communist Party	left the race
Total valid			5,677,525	100.00	5,882,820	100.00
Blank ballots			46,334	0.81	33,844	0.57
Invalid ballots			18,292	0.32	20,436	0.34
Total (turnout 75.38% and 77.99%)			5,742,151		5,937,100
^A He left the race in favor of Salgado Zenha.
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

References

1. "Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo", p. 32, The Times (London), 15 July 2004
2. O'Shaughnessy, Hugh, "Obituary: Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo; Europe's Second Female Prime Minister", p. 34. The Independent (London), 14 July 2004
3. Cook,Stephen and Stuart Wavell: "Thursday People: Lisbon's laby in waiting/ Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Portuguese presidential candidate", The Guardian (London), 2 January 1986
4. Associated Press, International News, Lisbon, Portugal, 19 July 1979
5. "Portuguese New Government Sworn In", Xinhua General News Service, 3 August 1979
6. "Table of Contents: Sisterhood is global :". Catalog.vsc.edu. Retrieved 2015-10-15.
7. "Portugal mourns much-loved female leader", EuroNews, 10 July 2004

Further reading

• Skard, Torild (2014) "Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo" in Women of Power - Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide, Brtistol: Policy Press, ISBN 978-1-44731-578-0.